Using a Bread Maker to Make Bread

Did you know that Fibonacci’s bread is baked in our store? We believe in only serving fresh bread so we’ve been baking our own breads since the start.

When baking bread, most people think of taking some flour and kneading it over the kitchen counter, then popping it in the oven to bake. They also think of the mess it makes, the time it takes, and the energy spent just on making a loaf of bread. Sure it’s a great activity for the weekend, but it can be difficult to keep up in daily life. This is where the bread machine comes in. At Fibonacci, depending on what kind of bread we make, we use both the conventional oven and bread maker to make bread, and we find that this combination gives us the perfect balance. If you plan on baking bread at home, considering purchasing a bread maker for the job.

A bread maker is a small appliance that combines ingredients, kneads flour, and bakes bread in the same compartment. It’s comparable to a rice cooker in size and parts. Typically a bread maker can do more than bake bread. The standard features that come in bread makers are their ability to knead dough (and not bake it) or make jam. Despite the similarities, they can range in function and performance depending on the brand you get. That’s why you should read bread maker reviews before getting one. Some good bread maker brands to consider are Zojirushi, Panasonic, Breville, and Oster.

When you are picking a bread maker, you should look at the settings. What kind of bread does it make? Or what’s the biggest loaf size? For us, an important factor is taste and size. We need a machine that can bake large loaves but do a good job at it. We bought the West Bend bread machine 41410 model because it can bake a 2.5-pound loaf which is quite rare among bread makers. The largest we’ve seen is 3-pounds, but we picked this machine because we liked the quality of the bread it produces. Again, reading reviews is helpful because you can understand how it performs without having to buy it first.

How To Use A Bread Maker

The process of using a bread maker to make bread is easy because all you have to do is follow instructions from the manual. Of course, bread making is a sensitive process and the slightest change in temperature or ingredients may affect the outcome. But more or less a bread maker will produce consistent results once you past the experimental phase. A good baking tip that we want to share with you is to wait until your ingredients are at room temperature before starting your machine. This helps achieve the perfect bread texture.

That said, your bread maker might have advanced technology that waits for the perfect temperature before beginning. You just put in the ingredients and press start, and it will remain idle until the temperature is right. For instance, the Panasonic SD-BMT1000 will do that and we actually think it’s the best Panasonic bread maker on the market today. It’s a highly capable machine that will bake rice bread, mochi bread, and marble bread and make other foods such as udon, mochi, and cake. For home use, it’s perfect. If it wasn’t a little small for our restaurant we would have purchased this machine.

Usually, bread machines take anywhere from 1 to 3 hours to bake bread from scratch. You’ll notice “quick bake” cycles on your bread maker which usually bakes bread in under an hour. But unless you’re in a hurry we don’t recommend using this cycle because yeast and dough takes time to develop their flavours.

When your bread is done baking, let it cool down a bit before taking it out. After you take it out place it on a cooling rack (one with holes) before slicing. Never slice into bread that’s not completely cooled. It needs some time to rest to finish off baking.

We hope you will discover the joy of baking your own bread if you haven’t already! It’s much easier to do so with a bread maker nowadays. They’re highly capable of producing delicious loaves!